immortals - complete series

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Well, that’s why we’re out in the middle of nowhere. And we won’t kill Luca. The others should probably stay back though.”

  Colin stopped Anna before she could make any more smartass comments about how unsafe this whole expedition was most likely going to be. “Show us how you channel it then.”

  Andrew glanced at one of the yellow buckets Luca had just placed on the ground one hundred feet in front of them and blew it over. Luca flipped him off and yelled something at him in his old Italian.

  “Whoa,” Anna breathed, “you can not only direct it, you can rein it in. Choose how much force to use.”

  Andrew nodded. “You will be able to as well. It just takes practice.”

  “But how? We’ve tried concentrating, we’ve tried not concentrating; we’ve tried waiting and not waiting. It’s always the same result.”

  Colin corrected her and reminded her about the parking lot outside of the restaurant. “Not always. Apparently, when you’re pissed off and worried, it’s a hell of a lot stronger.”

  “Emotions can make it more difficult to control. Just like a person’s temper. But you’ve been going about it the same way I did at first, treating it like it is an emotion. It’s more like having a natural affinity for something, say musical instruments, and you can pick up any instrument and teach yourself to make music on it but not good enough to get hired by the New York Philharmonic. You have to pick one and practice.”

  Anna and Colin both eyed Andrew with the same confusion.

  Luca had jogged over to them and even he was looking at him with the same puzzled expression. “I flew all the way to Venezuela for this?”

  Andrew rolled his eyes at him. “It was just an analogy, Luca. They’re getting discouraged because it’s not coming easily for them like the other gifts, and I’m just saying this one doesn’t come easy. There are no shortcuts. You use it and use it and tweak what’s not working and repeat what does.”

  Anna sighed and finally let her arms fall by her sides. “This sounds time consuming. You’re going to tell us this took you years to learn, aren’t you?”

  Andrew chewed on his lip and looked between the O’Conners and nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t have help. You do.”

  Luca snickered. “Some help. So far, all you’ve done is knock over a bucket and tell them they aren’t good enough to join the New York Philharmonic.”

  “Luca,” Colin warned, “no one is going to help you when Andrew starts kicking your ass. You brought it on yourself.”

  Luca’s eyes were laughing though. “No cheating with your energy blasting thing.”

  Andrew shook his head at him. “Then it’s not a fair fight. You’ve taught every Immortal in the world how to fight demons. Who stands a chance going toe to toe with you?”

  Anna exhaled impatiently. “Can you teach us how to use this energy blasting thing? Luca, go away. You’re distracting him.”

  “No way. Next time my angel shows up, I’m getting in on this. After the whole dream thing with you two, he’d better arm me with everything he’s got.”

  “Something tells me Luca gets his way with his angel as often as he does with humans. Another wager. To get out of going to Dublin,” Colin proposed.

  “Nope. We’re going to Ireland. But I’ll make a different wager. I say he gets it next time his angel shows up. And winner gets to pick out our next car.”

  Colin liked this deal. And he really didn’t want to lose this one. “Fine, second visit. And if I’m right, we’re selling the Camry and getting the 911.”

  Anna resisted the urge to sigh and roll her eyes at the same time. “If you insist on another Porsche, have you seen the Cayman?”

  Colin’s emerald eyes sparkled as he smiled at his wife because she was only humoring him. She couldn’t care less about cars, but she had looked it up just for him because she knew he loved them. But Luca and Andrew were waiting impatiently for the O’Conners to finish their private conversation, which wasn’t nearly as interesting as they probably thought it was. By current standards, Anna often felt like she and Colin must be a pretty boring couple.

  “Sorry,” Anna mumbled and turned to face the plastic buckets.

  Colin’s mind was still focused on the sport’s car his wife had just told him they might be able to get. He didn’t want to knock down plastic buckets anymore. And he had read all about the Porsche Cayman and even knew what color he’d choose.

  “Alright,” Andrew started, “you share all of your gifts, so perhaps you should try learning this one at a time. Don’t do it together. It may make it stronger and more difficult to control. Once you’ve mastered it solo, you can work on using it as a couple.”

  Anna nodded and offered to go first, knowing Colin’s mind was racing down the Autobahn in his new GT Silver Metallic Porsche Cayman. “With a garnet red interior,” he quickly added.

  This time, Anna did sigh and roll her eyes. “You’re throwing me off. I’m trying to fine tune my instrument here.”

  Colin choked on the laugh he’d tried to hold back because he’d thought of at least half a dozen sexual innuendos to that.

  From the far distance where the mortals were watching, she heard Dylan yell, “Are y’all going to do anything or what? We’re getting bored back here!”

  “Ok,” she muttered.

  But truthfully, she was nervous, because she wasn’t used to failing and every time she used this gift, she failed miserably. She felt the tingling energy as it coursed through her fingers and that warmth spread through her body, and she tried not to overthink its release this time but focused just on knocking over the same bucket Andrew had tossed so easily across the empty field. She felt the power burst forward and the yellow bucket splintered into tiny fragments of plastic debris.

  “Damn it,” she grumbled.

  She even stamped her foot, and Colin tried to make her feel better by assuring her she was absolutely breathtaking when she got all mad like that, but Anna wasn’t appeased. Andrew touched her arm gently and promised her it was going to take time; getting frustrated and angry would only make it more difficult.

  Colin’s attempt ended almost exactly like Anna’s, only he didn’t stamp his foot when his bucket exploded. Luca grabbed a couple more plastic buckets from the pile they’d brought with them and replaced the now shattered targets.

  In the distance, Anna heard Dylan yelling again. “At least you’re giving us something to watch now!”

  “You should buy him more of that Mephistopheles’ beer,” Anna grumbled.

  Andrew reminded her she couldn’t master the violin in a day, and Anna thought about flipping him off. He tried coaching them with each effort to channel this energy into a single burst, a controlled weapon, but after an hour, Anna was frustrated and sat on the ground in petulant defiance.

  Colin grinned sheepishly at Andrew and Luca and shrugged. Behind him, he could hear footsteps as one of the other hunters ran toward them. He turned to see Dylan sprinting in their direction.

  When he reached them, he panted, “Dude, why are y’all doing this separately? Every other thing you do is together. Maybe that’s why it’s not working.”

  Andrew protested that his power worked just fine without a teammate and Dylan argued with him about the unique nature of the O’Conners, but Colin tuned them out. He was focusing on Anna. Because even though she was sitting right in front of him, he could no longer feel her, and as she stared wide-eyed and frightened at him, he knew she had lost him as well.

  Chapter 14

  “It’s here,” Anna breathed. “It followed us or found us, I don’t know but it’s here.”

  The panic in her voice made Colin’s stomach turn. He reached down and grabbed her wrist, holding onto her, because this son of a bitch wasn’t taking her again. Luca and Andrew drew closer to them and scanned the empty field.

  “I don’t sense anything,” Andrew protested.

  But Luca had instinctively stepped even closer to Anna and cast only the briefest glance in A
ndrew’s direction.

  “You can’t feel these archdemons. They interfere with everything, our senses, our gifts. It cut off Anna and Colin right before it abducted her.”

  Dylan had already run back to the mortal hunters to warn them, and they were all racing to the small circle of Immortals waiting to see what this invisible archdemon would do.

  Colin was still holding onto Anna’s wrist but he couldn’t hear her or feel her, and she finally had to tell him to loosen his grip. He looked down at his hand and realized he had been holding onto her like a vise. He was absolutely terrified of losing her again.

  Anna knew her dagger and knife would be useless now so she used her other hand to grab a fistful of Colin’s shirt and pressed herself closer to his body. She was just as terrified of being lost.

  Dylan, Max and Lacey reached the Immortals and scanned the wilderness around them, feeling just as helpless and useless because nothing seemed out of place here. Everything around them belonged in this space: the orange rocks and dirt, the tufts of dry yellow-green grass, even the remnants of plastic buckets that had been shattered by Anna and Colin had a purpose here and belonged in this world.

  Anna leaned her forehead against Colin’s shoulder and he wrapped his arms around his wife. He wanted to leave. He wanted these hunters to escort them back to their car so they could get the hell out of here and away from this emptiness in their heads. It was so silent it was making him dizzy.

  Dylan kept walking in slow circles around the group, his dark eyes penetrating the horizon, looking for any hint of something not belonging. He was on his third trip around them when he stopped suddenly, kicking reddish brown dust into the air. Colin’s grip around Anna tightened.

  “He’s here,” Dylan sighed.

  At first, Colin didn’t understand. What he would be showing up unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere between Boulder and Denver to join a bunch of hunters practicing a gift they couldn’t figure out how to control? He followed Dylan’s hard gaze, half-expecting to see Luca’s angel again, but instead, saw the hulking gray form lumbering in the distance, the setting Colorado sun casting shimmering waves of amber around the beast. If it were closer, Colin would be able to see the bony nodules around its face and the goldenrod eyes that still reminded the hunters this demon used to be human. That it used to be their friend.

  Colin felt Anna’s fingers dig into his back when she recognized what Dylan was staring at, what this group of hunters would be confronted with again. Even though they’d agreed to give it two months to try to turn up something on how they might be able to undo Jeremy’s transformation, that promise had been contingent on this demon not attacking any of the hunters or putting anyone at risk. And now it was here.

  Colin and Anna also knew this particular demon never traveled alone; it possessed far too much knowledge and was far too useful to the archdemon it now worked for, and as the gray monster took its time sauntering toward the group of hunters, they all seemed to understand why. It was being protected by the same archdemon that had cut off Colin and Anna.

  Andrew took a few small steps back until his fingers brushed against Anna’s arm. “It won’t take you again, Anna. Colin, if you need to, use your power anyway. Those of you who are mortal, drop as low to the ground as possible. When you get thrown, it won’t throw you as far. Simple physics.”

  Anna would have protested about Andrew’s advice seeming a bit chauvinistic, considering she had the same power and was a badass hunter herself, but she was too scared. She couldn’t get the nightmares from the camp out of her mind, the sounds of Colin’s tortured screams that filled the room for what she had been so sure were days. She would endure anything except having to listen to her husband suffer like that again, even if it hadn’t been real. So she remained quiet, and held onto Colin like a life preserver as Jeremy crept closer to them, in no hurry to announce the arrival of his far more powerful boss.

  “I should have killed him,” Colin exhaled, and the iciness in his voice made Anna clutch him even closer. He couldn’t survive losing her again.

  Dylan looked away from the demon’s deliberate approach just long enough to offer Colin a sympathetic glance. He had obviously chosen to forgive the O’Conners. “Yeah, but how could you have known? Anna’s always trying to save everyone. That’s why we all liked her so much.”

  Anna sobbed out a sardonic laugh. “Jeremy liked me because he wanted to sleep with me.”

  Dylan snickered. “Well, yeah, but he genuinely liked you, too. Now Adriàn’s a different story. That guy’s just an asshole.”

  Colin cursed Adriàn in Gaelic, but without their telepathy, Anna didn’t know what he was saying anymore. It would seem that after almost four centuries together, she would have learned more of his second language, but he’d never spoken Gaelic in London, and once The Angel had gifted them their connection, she’d never had any reason to learn it. She had heard those particular words often enough though that she knew whatever he’d just said wasn’t something he’d repeat in front of children.

  Luca was getting impatient. “Why is it taking so long?” His fingers tapped against his leg as he tried to beat out some of his nervous energy.

  Anna looked up from the turquoise blue of Colin’s t-shirt. “It’s hoping to separate us. If it takes too long, we might get impatient or distracted. It doesn’t want us all bunched up like this.”

  Luca’s laugh was low and guttural, a laugh of disgust at the demons he’d spent more time fighting and killing than any other human on Earth. “I’d be scared if I were them, too.”

  “It can’t know Andrew’s an Immortal, but the archdemon and Jeremy might have figured you out from the parking lot,” Colin told Luca. “So they know there’s at least three of us here, plus four other hunters. They’ll try to eliminate whomever they think is weakest first.”

  “So us,” Lacey finished for him.

  “You and Max, yes. Jeremy knew Dylan had been blessed so he may be mortal, but he’s faster and stronger than regular hunters.”

  Dylan looked away from Jeremy’s hulking gray form, which seemed to be moving even slower now, for the second time to glance at Lacey. “Don’t worry. We won’t let it get to you.”

  Lacey sighed and shook her head. “There’s an awful lot of chivalry going around,” she muttered.

  Anna noticed Dylan’s expression changing just slightly, the way he tried to hide his embarrassment as he kept his focus on the virtually immobile beast still on the horizon.

  Max must have noticed as well because he broke the ensuing silence by adding, “Well, thanks. Actually, I’d appreciate it if y’all make sure these demons don’t kill me.”

  Dylan tried to offer a smirk, but the damage had already been done. Lacey kept scowling at the demon, completely unaware of the effect she’d had on Dylan. And Colin was far too distracted by the fact that the demon had apparently stopped moving.

  “How far out does your energy reach?” Colin asked Andrew.

  Andrew gauged the distance to the gray beast lurking on the horizon and shook his head. “Don’t think it would kill it from here.”

  “What if we just all move together?” Lacey suggested.

  Anna felt powerless and ineffectual, clinging to Colin and cowering like this, but the sounds of his tortured screams had filled her head again, and this time, she was sure it wasn’t a memory. The demon was messing with her mind again, had wormed its way inside her head somehow and was replaying those haunting sounds, forcing them into the forefront of her existence so that all around her was the screaming, the pleading, his begging for mercy and calling her name.

  She dug her fingers into his back and she must have been crying; she could faintly hear Colin speaking her name and trying to get her attention, but her worlds had collided. Whether she was there in that cold, steel gray room or here in the warm early autumn Colorado field, she didn’t even know anymore.

  Colin could tell something had happened to his wife, and he looked desperately at Luca, beg
ging him to do something but Luca stared helplessly at Anna. His anger had nowhere to manifest. He turned on Andrew.

  “Goddamn it, do something!” he yelled.

  Anna’s legs collapsed beneath her and only Colin’s arms kept her from falling to the hard caked ground. She let go of Colin’s shirt to press her hands to her ears as she began to scream, unable to listen to Colin being brutally tortured again. Images began filtering through her brain to accompany the sounds she heard and she screamed even louder.

  Luca closed the space between him and Andrew and grabbed the young man’s shirt and pulled him closer to his face. “Why the hell are you just standing there?” he yelled again.

  Colin had kneeled on the ground with Anna and he glared up at Andrew and warned him, “Get rid of this thing or I swear to God, I will kill everyone out here to protect her.”

  Andrew grimaced and looked around feebly. Whatever enemy he was supposed to be fighting remained hidden to him, but he must have recognized Colin’s desperation because he targeted the gray beast on the horizon first to see if it would at least distract the more powerful archdemon from tormenting Anna. Jeremy floundered on his feet and stumbled but he’d been too far away for Andrew to hurt it. And Anna was still screaming.

  Andrew had enough time to glance back at Colin to know what he was going to do.

  “Get down!” he called to the other hunters, and they dropped just as Colin released a massive burst of energy that shook the ground; pebbles rattled around his boots and orange dust clouds filled the air. He had no idea where any of his fellow hunters were, but his mind was only on one person anyway, and she had stopped screaming.

  As the dirt settled slowly back to the ground, Anna lowered her hands from her ears and collapsed onto Colin’s chest again. His tormented cries were gone. There was nothing around her but the gentle ticking of dirt and debris falling back to the Earth. She wept until his shirt was soaked with her tears, and he repeated her name aloud over and over until, like a trickling of raindrops down a window, her thoughts began to swirl around in his mind again.